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1. "Anarchism" is about having no violently leaders. (No "archons," historically.)

2. "Communism" (according to Marx/Engels) is the stateless society that would exist once the state died off.

They predicted workers would take over the governments world-wide & abolish class systems (abolishing the need for the state,) & then the state would wither away & die.

1. "Socialism" (according to socialists) is about worker owned industry. eg worker co-ops & smaller individual owned businesses. However "socialism" according to any western TV outlet is a "government owned economy."

In other words, how the US media describes these terms is all Orwellian. (Up is down, black is white.)

I think one have to differentiate labour from labour.

Much of when Marx kind of "glorify" labour in his works it's not the kind of labour we think about today, which is market-related labour.

There's actually, from a psychological perspective, a very big difference if labour is labour done for money and labour done for social reasons (favours etc). The fourth chapter in Predictably Irrational by behavioural economist Dan Ariely speaks about this diffence from a behaviroural/psychological perspective. Very interesting.

So, as I said, as I understand Marx when he speaks of labour as the essence of humans I don't think he refers to the market-related labour we usually think about.

>What is this actual oppressor class, you ask? The actual oppressor class is the "political class" as originally identified by the Frenchmen Charles Comte and Dunoyer over 150 years ago. By the "political class" it is meant those who draw their livelihood not from the Market, but from the State. The political class is the parasitic class that acquires its livelihood via the "political means" — through "confiscation, taxation, and other forms of coercion." Their victims are the rest of us — the productive class — those who make their living through peaceful and honest means of any sort, such as a worker or an entrepreneur.

That initially reminds me of Milton Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom, where he denotes an essential bifurcation between "economic freedoms" and "political freedoms" so to speak. Of course, this is very problematic and doesn't stand up in mainstream political philosophy. The problem with Friedman's formulation seems to resemble my first thoughts against agorist class theory; that is, in reducing things in this way to solely "political means" neglects the sort of co-dependency between "political means" and, say, "economic means" -- just as the popular critique of Friedman's theory often runs with his two kinds of freedoms.

That said, now perhaps in defense of Marx, the "political class" set forth by SEKIII appears to mean nothing if the power is not there. Where does the power first come from? How does there exist a "political class" to begin with? A good case could be made to suggest that since, and this is over-simplifying greatly, basic economic staples are required by the masses, the first political power comes from those who own the means of production - those who can provide the foodstuffs. Marx's class analysis may undermine the agorist theory by saying that political power is secondary to, well, biological necessity.

Notice: I haven't read the agorist class theory in full, and my response may be completely mistaken as a result.

And I'd like to point you in the direction of Man, Economy, & State, The Ethics of Liberty, The Road to Serfdom, Economics in One Lesson, Economic Harmonies (Books 1 & 2), and Socialism. These are all available online.

I'm not going to read any book that holds the UNABOMBER to be a good guy. So frankly, fuck you for suggesting such a vile piece of shit. Looking over it further, it seems like absolute propaganda and not a serious exercise in intellectualism. Probably useful in seducing teenagers into believing in such a horrible belief system.

> We were never allies with the Nazis

Wrong. The Polish allied the Nazis in their invasion of the Czechoslovak state, among things:

Winston Churchill:

• "Great Britain advances, leading France by the hand, to guarantee the integrity of Poland -- of that very Poland which with hyena appetite only six months before, joined in the pillage and destruction of the Czechoslovak state."

-- Winston Churchill

> The soviets invaded us not even 18 years before.

Actually in the Polish-Soviet war Poland invaded the USSR.

• "the conflict began when the Polish head of state Józef Piłsudski formed an alliance with the Ukrainian nationalist leader Symon Petlyura (April 21, 1920) and their combined forces began to overrun Ukraine, occupying Kiev on May 7. In June the Soviet Red Army launched a counteroffensive, reaching the former Polish border by the end of July."

-- http://www.britannica.com/event/Russo-Polish-War-1919-1920

• "Poland's Chief of State, Józef Piłsudski, felt the time was right to expand Polish borders as far east as feasible, to be followed by a Polish-led Intermarium federation of East-Central European states as a bulwark against the re-emergence of German and Russian imperialisms.

Lenin, meanwhile, saw Poland as the bridge the Red Army had to cross to assist other communist movements and bring about other European revolutions. By 1919, Polish forces had taken control of much of Western Ukraine, emerging victorious from the Polish–Ukrainian War."

-- wikipedia

Stop being ignorant. I suggest you get off the internet.

This article is relevant to the discussion, please read it.

Also, I would like to add that the desirable characteristics of capitalism are not necessarily inherent to capitalism - innovation, price-reduction, and "quality" are all secondary when it comes to profit. If profit can be achieved without innovation (which is expensive and uncertain), price-reduction (which runs up against profit), or quality (which also runs up against profit), then it will be, and often is.

Instead of relying on the unreliable profit motive, "complete" socialism is able to directly focus on innovation, price, and quality through efficient management of resources, coordination, and sharing (of what would otherwise be "trade secrets") between industry groups so that consumer products can incorporate the best knowledge, the effort, and the resources of an entire country working together rather than hundreds of firms constantly locked into competition with each other. Or more as the tendency is in capitalism, a few, extremely large firms comfortable with each other and lobbying the government to preserve that state. I agree with you that having multiple parties striving to capture market share by creating the best products is a fairly good system in some cases, but ultimately I prefer the socialist model of innovation because it offers an efficient, coordinated, cooperative, open, and moreover direct way to innovate.

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=game+theory+study&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart&sa=X&ei=lO-zT4fAKOr-2QXy2rjpCA&ved=0CBsQgQMwAA

Game theory. Prisoner's dilemma. The actions of all humans on a day to day basis. Criminal behavior. This has been widely studied.

I'll firstly say thank you for reading Capital, as a lot of people who debate this subject don't look for holes in communist theory, but instead blurt out capitalistic rhetoric.

Marx's theories are based off the work of Adam Smith and other classical economists' works. If you read The Wealth of Nations (by Adam Smith) in one of the chapters he explains that market forces would cause this situation to be unstable and collapse very quickly, because capitalists don't care about the aggregate profit of the whole economy, but rather their profit and their profit only. This would mean that one capitalist would try to undercut others in price, rapidly causing a race to the bottom and thus back to the standard supply and demand model. As you should know, the supply and demand model is only a model, and as with every model it has it's flaws (because the model is a simplification of real life).

However, as history and your model, where Rs>0 and no surplus value is made, happens. Capitalists form cartels and do this, but the problem is that cartels are normally banned in most places on earth, only operate on an informal basis/in niche industries or do not last very long. So although your argument is correct, it doesn't really happen in the real world.

Agreed, but that's not what I'm speaking to. Most AnCaps talk about how it's not capitalism if it's got a state, which is hogwash. Smith specifically spoke about state intervention in The Wealth of Nations.

> Archon was a broad term... for those in positions of state power

I know- that's what I meant by "violent rulers." Not just the top ruler, but their bureaucrats & so on.

If you're interested, this is best the website for such things IMO.

It's one of the most interesting websites on the net.

> democracy

What I meant:

• "'Democracy' is often thought of as a form of state. Communism couldn't have that, but instead, could have voluntary community-based democracies."

Anyways, I was curious what the oldest meaning of "democracy" is, & according to etymonline.com "demos" + "kratos" meant "district" + "rule, strength". . .

Which changed into "common people" + "rule, strength."

And after all that, the next "root word" for democracy appears to be demokratia, meaning "popular government." (Which of course you can totally reject if you prefer a modern definition.)

So, (IMO) whether communism would match the original meaning is a little subjective. I mean, if someone is making "strong rules" that could mean a state, but it also could mean other things:

eg, "strong rules" could mean individual (stateless) self-defense & personal property. But I digress.

I've argued that someday in the very far future (post aggressive violent mafia / post state) that the state could be replaced with voluntary local community groups who'd have meetings to (somewhat) "centrally plan" that their area had all the basic services.

I'm not completely sure that would match the very original root word(s) of "democracy," but maybe. It's rather subjective.

One more reason to admire Nozick:

>Nozick disclaims the title "political philosopher" and characterizes his Anarchy, State, and Utopia as "an accident" that came about because he was "getting nowhere" working on the problem of free will.

See also: The Liberty Scam

See also Nozick's On Austrian Methodology, a scathing critique of Austrian economics. I took the time to upload it for you if you didn't have access.

>On the last point, Capitalism managed to pull itself out of the productivity problem with automation (which in-turn has lead to worker obsolescence and/or alienation) and larger cities

I'd like to add that automation and machinery do not produce a net decrease in employment opportunities.

Source: Henry Hazlitt, "Economics in One Lesson" [pdf], The Curse of Machinery, p36

>A communist society would be trying to reduce the workload of its people, and employment obsolescence could potentially be a non-issue.

[](/pro) Machines are a non-issue, providing a net-benefit to solving the problem of scarcity IMO.

I haven't read Morishima but Diane Elson does challenge his approach. The Value Theory of Labour, see section 2 The Theory of Value: an explanation of prices? and p.120 in particular. I read Elson because David Harvey recommended her in his book Limits of Capital.

Thank you for the polite reply. However, that long rant does not clearly address the topic.

If you're trying to sound "moderate" then simply say you "misspoke"- ie, say that you do consider it legitimate to debate what "feminism" is. (eg, to question whether feminist activism/actions matches the ideology.)

> The word atheist, as an example, is fought over all the time as to whether or not it means "lack of a belief in a deity" or "disbelief in a deity," two starkly different things.

Those aren't different. "Dis" literally means "lack of." (usually:)

Dis:

• word-forming element meaning 1. "lack of, not" (e.g. dishonest);

-- etymonline.com

Therefore "disbelief" literally means "lack of belief."

You only asked about domestic deaths, which seems intriguing. In any case, I guess you could start with the deaths of native americans caused by the US government. According to this those dead in direct combat would be between 100k and 1 million. Considering other causes you can figures as high as several million deaths.

Feudalism also has its origin in early medieval Europe, when land grants known as feudum were given to local administrators as rewards for their service to the state. The term "feudum" first appears in 984.

sources: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/205583/feudalism

http://books.google.com/books?id=dO4rbfA_WVIC&pg=PA248#v=onepage&q&f=false

Just because the labor inputs occur first, does not mean they dictate price.

>Think it through: if the cost of a good dictated the cost of the labor inputs, what would happen to it's cost if a labor saving inovation was introduced? Per your logic, nothing.

No, the profitability of manufacturing that good would temporarily increase, and that would set off a series of adjustments. Companies will often preemptively drop their prices because it is more profitable to sell more goods at a lower price with a small profit margin on each item than it is to sell less goods with a higher price and a larger profit margin.

>Which theory is born out by empirical evidence?

You keep bringing this up as if it is a trump card. I'm telling you its not, no one denies the correlation between labor costs and the price of a final good. Correlation says nothing about causation, and in this case there is a good reason to believe that causation runs the other way.

>do you have a scientifically testable conclusion that would follow from your axioms?

Yeah, it depends on what parts of it you want to test. I'm sure someone has done it before since price theory is one of the most tested ideas in economics.

You will need a DOS emulator. You can get DOSbox here: http://www.dosbox.com/

You can find Civ 1 here: http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/14/Civilization.html

There is a part where you can select the Civilization you play as and if you pres Esc it will let you name your own Civilization which is how I named myself the Communists. Just since the feature isn't obvious.

> Ahem, Reddit forums are not a good place to plan "revolutions." ;)

Maybe for you. FoxyProxy and mobile IP's do wonders.

> The problem I have with red-revolutionary philosophies is their total disregard for property rights

We allow possessive property. If you're using something, you "own" it for the time being. If you are a worker in a factory, you "own" it with your buddies. If you're a capitalist who has no real connection with the workplace and lives 2,000 kilometers away, you have no rights to the factory.

I don't think I need to address the rest of your post as it was based on your above misconception of commie anti-freedom.

>What the fuck? I'm not here to discuss the finite variations in various communist ideologies. Stop wasting my goddamn time.

lol you can't explain it, this is fucking hilarious.

>You clearly have no concept of capitalism,

define capitalism cupcake. You must be able to do that at least. We already know you lied when you said you'd read socialist texts, but you must have read Wealth of Nations or something. Unless you're completely full of shit, which wouldn't be surprising.

>You can give me a list of authors and writings before you come back.

I've read all of Adam Smith's major works, I've read "An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought" along with Rothbard's collected essays. I've read Capitalism and Freedom by Friedman, I've read On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation by Ricardo, Elements of Political Economy by Mill. Need I go on?

Machines don't result in a net gain in unemployment. To say that would be to commit a variation of the broken window fallacy. Here's some of Hazlitt's thoughts from "Economics in One Lesson":

>"Among the most viable of all economic delusions is the belief that machines on net balance create unemployment. Destroyed a thousand times, it has risen a thousand times out of its own ashes as hardy and vigorous as ever. Whenever there is long continued mass unemployment, machines get the blame anew. This fallacy is still the basis of many labor union practices. The public tolerates these practices because it either believes at bottom that the unions are right, or is too confused to see just why they are wrong.” (p. 49)

Here's a very nice discussion/summary of Hazlitt's writing on automation (start on p.6): http://www.suu.edu/faculty/lewis_t/acct3350/pdf/hazlitt.pdf

My claim is then that communism in theory, when put into practice, REQUIRES as you mention a "stateless, classless society by a state with classes, then being coopted by dictatorships or totalitarians." Remember that Marx believed and wrote what he did because it is SUPPOSED to be put into practice. The Communist Manifesto is not just supposed to lay idly as a book on a shelf. It is supposed to be enacted in the form of state communism, without totalitarianism and censorship. My stance is that these tyrannies are a full requirement for any kind of communism in practice to function. It is not a coincidence that every single country in the world which has attempted to execute Marx's view has done so with their system of oppression. They have obviously seen it is necessary, because people by nature can see it is a horrid system and crave a different system.

As for your second claim, I disagree. We are not forced to read Adams' The Wealth of Nations in school when we are kids. We are not forced to study exclusively the capitalist form of government in high school and be quizzed on it. When the topic of forms of government comes in play, teachers give equal time on Marxist and capitalist theory. And, most importantly, there is no factual censorship. All this is extremely different in state communist societies today. 99% of Chinese or North Korean citizens would fail an objective and factual basic quiz on what democracy or capitalism is. In one TV documentary, the journalist asked a classroom full of college students majoring in "political science" what democracy is. Every single person in the classroom was unfamiliar with the word.

>I'm not convinced that this is true. What leads to this end-result?

Once you have any mechanism for people to get out of abject poverty, then immediately those who do are no longer equal in finances to those who are still in poverty.

>There are differing ways to allocate resources. I admit that I don't know enough about it, but I will research and get back to you (eventually).

In you're research you'll find that none of the others have worked. This has been tried many, many times. State run businesses fail. Private businesses succeed.

>I recently starting learning about economies and their history, so it's a pretty interesting discussion. I'm not at the level where I'd push for certain policies in actuality. Maybe once I learn more, and I can provide a better devil's advocate.

I think you'd profit a great deal from reading Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt. I think its absolutely the correct perspective on economics, but even if you end up disagreeing, it will give you a great deal of understanding in a very short period of time.

I believe you can download the book here for free: http://www.fee.org/pdf/books/Economics_in_one_lesson.pdf

Economics is something I got into once I started getting rich, because I recognized macro events affected my net worth. But once I did, I discovered its quite fascinating and it explains a lot.

For instance, Ludwig von Mises predicted the fall of the soviet union 70 years in advance ,and he did it by predicting exactly how and why it would fall, at a time when leftists in the west were pointing to it as proof of the superiority of socialism. It probably won't surprise you to hear that it was the inability to allocate resources that was the core cause of the fall.

> Anarchism is a specific socioeconomic system.

"Anarchism" literally means a lack of violent hierarchy. (A lack of "archons.")

• from an- "without" + arkhos "leader" (see archon).

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=anarchy&searchmode=none

In other words: "violence + hierarchy != anarchism."

Any "anarchist" who believes in "personal property" (eg, "if someone tries to take my personal computer, I won't let them have it") is endorsing violence.

And if that "violence" combines with "hierarchy" (like many unions/trade-unions) then you have "violent hierarchy." (Which is not anarchist.)

eg, if "Bob's tool company" is violently owned by it's workers (they built the tools themselves, & they do the upkeep) and that company becomes controlled by "Tools Union #36. . ."

That's violently enforced hierarchy, which is not anarchist.

> What I reject is that anarchists are confused over the word when they use it. This is your claim.

I never said anarchists were "confused."

Here are the last three pages of the epilogue.

The whole epilogue is worth reading but I have only found a link that shows the last 3 pages:

https://books.google.com/books?id=qUCxpznbkaoC&pg=PA1209&lpg=PA1209&dq=%22This+was+not+itself+a+consequence+of+MArxism%22&source=bl&ots=D6J952lscZ&sig=BJdV3ithx8iUxKihNOTwozQBKYQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=g-fbVIbhOYK7ggTl74...

Who decides what is good or evil, when as a rule:

Destruction of the natural/current balance is inevitable, in order to create anything new, or good, or better, or in some ways, worse than what came b4 it. Who/how does this person/people decide what is good/evil?

> Crashing buildings to build new ones. We must destroy in order to create. - Joseph Stalin

The moment you accepted libertarianism as something other than a moral philosophy, and morals as objective rather than relative, and private property as stemming from something other than consent or might, and the non-aggression principle as an axiom, you became the donkey.

Okay so there's this awesome science called Micro-Economics. It has a couple of core principles that have been pretty thoroughly proven through pretty coherent mathematics. I recommend you start with Khan Academy, as this guy is awesome at explaining everything.

PROOFS http://www.khanacademy.org/finance-economics/microeconomics

Most of us libertarians will agree with your assertion that modern society is dystopian and feudal, and most of us actually oppose colonial exploitation as much as you do. If anything, libertarian capitalism seems to me be to be the essential gateway to true communism.

Well, socialism jumped the USSR from a semi-feudal agrarian peasant economy to a world super power in the shortest amount of time in world history. There were merits to the planned economy. See this great book, Farm to Factory.

The thing is, as Marxists we recognize the historical necessity of capitalism, and its achievements. Marx said this from the beginning, that capitalism has been useful in creating industrialized social economies.

Our position is simply that the system remains flawed and a different world is possible.

What I want are good consumer electronics made under 1st world working conditions whether it be in China/US/India/... at the best price I can get it for. There is no way for me, the average consumer, to visit every factory of every piece of electronics I buy.

FoxConn and Apple is a bad example because 1. They're starting to clean up their act. 2. Other companies are just as bad, or worse, it just hasn't gotten as much coverage because Apple is the largest company in the world right now. (Look at Samsung's recent child labor scandal)

Also, you are affected by advertisements. If you think the fact that you don't eat at McDonald's means you aren't affected by advertisements, then you don't understand how advertisements work.

Very similar terms, at least how they're used here. Technically, if we're talking of the profits as profits, it would be distribution. If speaking of the capital/money in general, it may be called redistribution. Not really important though.

Who gets them? The most worthy get them, of course! The people that put the most effort into their commune and thus put the most effort into helping their society and thus their friends would get them. See Adam Smith's Wage Variables (The Wealth of Nations: Book one, chapter 10, part one).

> Whoever gets them could be considered more powerful.

Not more powerful, more wealthy. And that's fine! Inequality is permitted under a communist society, as long as it's 'just' inequality (i.e. some have worked harder to have more than their peers) and as long as there's equality of opportunity.

Feel free to post what Marx said that you disagree with here or in another thread. As for Milton Friedman he is heavily biased in favour of the capitalist class against the poor and working classes. In essence he is fighting the class war against the poor and working people on the side of the capitalists who already have plenty amongst poverty. To begin with his popular book "Capitalism and Freedom" is clearly biased from the start as it compares capitalism and freedom. This should never be done.

Capitalism explicitly is against the existence of freedom for the majority of its population. Freedom may exist for the capitalist class but not for the rest of the population which is the majority. The majority of the population including the poor and working classes of capitalism are coerced into alienation at threat of poverty so they are not free. By failing to see things from the perspective of poor and working people Milton Friedman has demonstrated his class nature as a capitalist ideologue.

Furthermore, he has explicitly denied the role that class struggle has played in improving the livelihoods of the majority of the population including the poor and working people. He does this because he doesn't really want what is best for the majority of the population as he is an ideologue and an elitist. He also wants to get rid of concessions won by poor and working people in the class struggle further impoverishing them and further enriching the capitalist class which already has plenty amongst poverty.

This is probably the most direct statement I can find from Hayek:

>“There is little question that in times of general unemployment the state must intervene to mitigate genuine hardship either by disbursing unemployment compensation or, as in earlier times, by legislation to help the poor.” -- F.A. Hayek, Das Goldproblem (1937)

I don't think you're an Austrian economist. To be fair, I don't think you're an economist at all. I'd recommend putting down Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson and instead suggest you take many, many economics lessons at a respectable university.

Does this same line of reasoning work for the Capitalist, does he get to choose who works for him and who doesn't? Isn't he forced to give his capital in exchange for the valuable work he gives?

This line of reasoning is fallacious. Choice removes "Direct Control"

The worker still owns his labor, and if he disagrees with the practices of the capitalist, the capitalism can't stay in business because he requires his labor. One can't survive without the other. How exactly does Socialism remove this problem to begin with? It simply moves the choice from the worker into the hands of the government and then the control is mute regardless.

I'd suggest reading "Economics in One Lesson" by Henry Hazlitt; he covers this quite nicely.

Once again, crack open any economics book (I suggest Man, Economy, & State or perhaps Economics in One Lesson) just because something can be produced to accommodate everyone's wants does not mean that it is infinitely abundant and available in all locations (not scarce). Electricity (at least in America) is available to satisfy almost everyone's wants. This does not mean energy is suddenly "not scarce".

You're changing the definition of words. That is intellectually weak.

Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt

It may be a little dated; it was written in 1946. It is one of the simplest books on economics to be found. It is less than 200 pages and in the public domain. Even if you disagree with its arguments, there is no reasonable justification for not reading it.

I was responding on a cell phone. And I use the Chicago Manual of Style when writing or editing; it's a bit more recent than The Elements of Style (and has the benefit of contemporary usage). I frankly don't care to put forth much effort in editing or writing over Reddit on the interwebs.

I know it can be frustrating to commit the logical fallacious and outright errors you made throughout your "argument." I also understand the desire to comment about something entirely unrelated in a pathetic attempt to gain a better position, but you failed miserably in both attempts.

I do appreciate you spending the time to shuffle through the comments to further this unrelated comment string. It's a bit pathetic. Perhaps you ought to find another more productive use of your time. I also appreciate you taking the time to edit some of your posts to remove the various errors you have made. This is so cute!

Capitalism and chistianity are intertwined. One Nation Under God will tell you about that unholy anti-worker alliance.

I officially give up. You can find a philosopher to spout off any crazy thing that does violence to common sense. I despair of the average sheeple, but their depleted attention span will at least keep them from your spurious and obfuscatory doctrines. Communism will never work, and will never be adopted without wallstreet funding

>The supposed response from Soviet authorities is dubious, as this kind of improvisation to meet production quotas was in many cases welcomed when the state was unable to plan for these contingencies. And this is indeed an exceptional circumstance. The Soviet economy was the second-fastest growing in the 20th century, and for the most part, allocations of inputs were accurate, with requirements meticulously noted by local planning agencies. Factories and farms functioned well. See Robert C. Allen's Farm to Factory: A Reinterpretation of the Soviet Industrial Revolution, and Joseph Ball's The Need For Planning.

Your two cites have been widely discredited. The Russian economy grew faster under the Tsars than it did under the commisars. This was the reason both why WWI started - Germany recognized and deeply feared the growing industrial power of Russia, and a contributing reason to the Revolution - vast numbers of serfs born on farms were being converted into Factory workers and had no roots in the cities, no connection to society, and with the suffering of WWI were easily exploitable by the communists. See 'A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891-1924' for both an overview of the revolution and a discussion on the rate of industrialization. http://www.amazon.com/Peoples-Tragedy-Russian-Revolution-1891-1924/dp/014024364X

The major advantages of a socialist economy are the elimination of overproduction as well as giving complete information to planners. Capitalism has to struggle with overproduction and incomplete information as a result of them operating as competitors. That's the major difference.

Industrialization under the czars was not really qualitatively different from Stalin's industrialization except for the fact it was extremely patchy, concentrated, and relatively marginal; as well as the fact that the industrialization was almost exclusively to build up military capabilities. And yes, I'm aware it ruined much of agriculture. That was relatively intentional, the motivation for the 1932 famine was to export grain in return for rapid industrialization. Which he succeeded in.

I'd recommend you read The Revolution Betrayed, and The Contradictions of Real Socialism to understand the actual problems with the Stalinist socialist model.

I appreciate and respect shark hood, but no I don't agree with her, and she also did not phrase her explanation as the be all and end all on this topic; she left open a space for discourse and questioning while still informing me.

One of the most respected art critics in the world who comes from a marxian perspective, Isabelle Graw, wrote a book on this topic, "High Price", that conflicts with what you three are telling me. (not withstanding that user 629 what evs and sharkhood conflict with each other)

I read that book recently and it presented a different formulation than what you are espousing.

http://www.amazon.com/Isabelle-Graw-High-Price-Celebrity/dp/1933128798